Friday, July 5, 2013

Montage # 112 – Polska

As of August 2nd, 2013, this montage will no longer be available on Pod-O-Matic. It can be heard or downloaded from the Internet Archive at the following address / A compter du 2 août 2013, ce montage ne sera plus disponible en baladodiffusion Pod-O-Matic. Il peut être téléchargé ou entendu au site Internet Archive à l'adresse suivante:

Before getting stated with today’s montage, a few words about our Friday Blog and Podcast for July and August. In past years, I have prepared a series of montages that consider music of different countries, often by non-native composers. We will do this again this year, but every other week. We will alternate the Musical Passport series with a look at the complete piano concertos and symphonies of Sergei Rachmaninov, this year being the double anniversary of his birth and death (140th and 70th, respectively).

Our musical passport destination this week is Poland, a country rich in culture, tradition and for most of the 20th Century, a country that was subjected to oppressive regimes: the Nazi occupation, the Soviet influence, etc. But is also the homeland of a soon-to-be saintly Pope who changed all that.

Musically, when one thinks of Poland, thoughts go directly to Frederic Chopin, possibly more French than Polish, but who made a point of exploring the dance motifs of his country: notably the mazurka, and the polonaise.

Ironically, I chose to feature Chopin waltzes in today’s montage played by Hungary’s Geza Anda. The set of waltzes I selected all have the subtitle “valse brillante”, some more grand than others.

Chopin wrote his fair share of polonaises (I included an early polonaise for piano and cello to the montage rather than one of his more famous solo piano attempts), but also added the fine polonaise by Antonin Dvorak.

Peter Tchaikovsky also penned a few polonaises in his day – the one from Eugene Onegin comes to mind, as well as the brilliant polonaise that caps off his third suite. A polonaise he wrote for his third symphony was so distinctive and memorable, that it led to a subtitle for that symphony – known as Polish.

To end the montage, the memorable musical piece from a forgotten British film from the Second World War: Dangerous Moonlight. The passage, composed by Richard Addinsell and orchestrated by Roy Douglas is of course the Warsaw Concerto.